


It's all good

by Here_to_procrastinate



Series: If it had been worse [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Hinted Sexual Assault, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Wano Arc (One Piece), Slave Monkey D. Luffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27919021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Here_to_procrastinate/pseuds/Here_to_procrastinate
Summary: The Straw Hat crew (and Law) discover something about Luffy, that nobody had anticipated.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy/Trafalgar D. Water Law
Series: If it had been worse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2044387
Comments: 4
Kudos: 177





	It's all good

**Author's Note:**

> The story is set at a random time after wano kuni. It's not completely canon compliant - as you can see in the tags. Hope you like it! :D

The first time Nami noticed something was weird was when they were all laying on the deck of the Sunny. It was a horribly hot day, and everyone was wearing as little as possible – the navigator felt truly sorry for Chopper as he couldn’t take off his fur.  
Robin and Nami were wearing bikinis and all the men had taken off their shirts besides Brook – the redhead wasn’t even sure if he could sweat – and Luffy. The teenager had his head rested in Zoro’s lap with his signature straw hat pulled over his eyes. Even though he was sweating as much as the rest of them, he hadn’t taken off his red shirt.

“Luffy, why don’t you take it off?”

The boy lifted his head. Instantly the swordsman opened his eye looking annoyed. Nami smirked internally. She knew that, although he would never say it, Zoro loved how cuddly Luffy was. Deep down he was just a big softy.

“What?”

“Why don’t you take it off? Your shirt? It’s way to warm too wear a top.”

And then – for only a short moment – Nami could have sworn that she saw a little uncertainty on her captain’s face. But before she could truly realise it, the boy smiled widely again.

“I’m not even that hot! And I like that shirt! It has frills like Sabo’s!”

Nami knew that Luffy was lying as she could see the sweat on his forehead but before she could argue Zoro had already pulled the boy’s head back into his lap. The navigator just sighed. Whatever. It was too warm to argue anyways.

~

The second time the navigator noticed that something was weird was when Luffy fell into a thornbush.

They had landed on an island that was mostly forest. If it were up to Nami they wouldn’t have set a foot on the island. They didn’t need food and no one lived here.  
But all that was needed was exactly _one_ “Adventure!”-exclamation from Luffy to make everyone just roll with his decision. There was nothing that could change his mind anyways.

Usopp, Chopper and Luffy had instantly ran off to explore as soon as they had landed, Sanji went looking for some kind of fruit Nami had never heard of before, Robin and Franky decided to stay on the ship and Zoro fucked off to god-knows-where. The redhead only hoped he would make it back to the ship and not accidentally wander off to another island.

So that left the navigator sitting on the beach looking out onto the sea. Even though she saw it everyday it seemed to look different every time. Maybe that was normal in the New World… just like skyscraper big sea monsters, tornados that lasted several weeks and deadly poisonous shells. Nami shuddered, but before she could think more about all the horrors of the ocean she heard screams behind her.

“No, Luffy! That’s a mahonia! It has thorns!”

“Aaaand… he jumped.”

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!”

The redhead rolled her eyes. Those idiots. Still she stood up to look after the boys. After all those were her idiots.

When she reached her crew mates Usopp and Chopper were standing in front of Luffy who looked pretty ruffled up but seemed to be okay altogether.

The sharpshooter was laughing, while Chopper looked worried and the captain pouted.

“That’s not funny!”

“It kind of is!”

“No, it’s not! Are you okay, Luffy? Should I look at your scratches?”’

“Naa, everything’s okay Chopper.”

“But…-“

Nami coughed.

“He’s right Chopper, he has survived way worse. But I hope you have clothes to change into? I won’t buy anything new!”

Luffy looked down at his clothes and realised how torn they were.

“Uuuh… yeah, I will just go change. Now.”

Fumbling with his ripped shirt the boy jumped onto the next tree, quickly disappearing into the woods.

Usopp knitted his eyebrows and gazed after his captain.

“That was… strange.”

“Do you think his scratches are bad after all?”

Nami lifted the ships doctor into her arms.

“No don’t worry, Chopper.”

“There had been something on Luffy’s back”, Usopp stated

“Yeah, I saw it too.”

“Maybe it’s a tattoo?”

“Don’t you think he would have shown us before?”

“Maybe it’s something personal. Maybe he got matching tattoos with Ace when they were kids or something.”

“Maybe…”

~

Nami hadn’t really thought much about those first two occurrences. There had always been more urgent things that needed her attention.  
The third occurrence had been the one she had found out what was going on. And even though it was deeply egoistic she kind of wished she had never found out.

The Straw Hats had met up with the Heart Pirates on some strange island where it wasn’t allowed to sing or make any kind of music.  
After meeting some kid that was sad because he couldn’t sing for his dying mother, Luffy – obviously – needed to find out what was up with the no-music-law.

It had turned out that the king hated seeing people laugh because he always thought that they laugh at him and so he forbid singing and partying as a lot of people laughed while doing those things. What a joke.  
After the Straw Hats had figured out what was going on they had – obviously – once again overthrown a corrupt government.

But although the king had been a big cry baby, he had had a pretty strong army, so at the end of the fight Luffy had been heavily injured. As always.  
Luckily there hadn’t only been the Straw Hats doctor ready to nurse their captain back to health but also Trafalger Law immediately ready to look after his ally.

They were all standing in the treating room of the Sunny, gathered around their unconscious captain more or less nervous – they knew Luffy would live, he always did – when Law and Chopper had started arguing. Something Nami had never seen before. They were both excellent doctors and normally they always had the same opinion. Furthermore, Nami knew that Law though that Chopper was adorable even though he would never admit it.

“Chopper-ya, we have to take off Mugiwara-ya’s shirt. His back is bleeding a lot.”

“No! He doesn’t want us to. He always forbids me from wrapping up his torso.”

Law stilled for a moment.

“Why?”

“I don’t know! I mean you’re the one who treated him after Marineford!”

The surgeon of death shook his head.

“I didn’t see his upper body, I was too exhausted after the surgery. Jean Bart wrapped him up. After that he started to always help me with surgeries.”

Zoro interrupted the conversation.

“Stop talking. Start treating Luffy. And Chopper: Law is right, you have to do something about his back, even if he doesn’t want you to.”

Law lifted Luffy’s body and turned him around. Every time someone manhandled their captain with such ease, Nami was reminded how small and skinny the boy was even though he was absurdly strong.

“Okay, Chopper bring me some scissors, I think we need to cut off his shirt.”

Even though the reindeer’s eyes were still teary he stood up to get scissors.  
After that it was one clean cut of the surgeon to turn Nami’s whole world upside down.

The soft ‘thud’ of the shirt falling to the ground seemed to be incredibly loud in the silent room as everybody stared at Luffy’s back.  
There was a red branding on the boy’s back. It was a little bit faded but still clear to see: a filled-out circle with three triangles on top of it and one at the bottom. The navigator choked.

“Is that…?”

Nami asked although she already knew the answer. They all remembered Sabaody Archipelago and the slave auction.  
Every member of the Straw Hats crew seemed to have stopped breathing at the same time. Right beside the redhead Robin started trembling.

Law shot the Straw Hats a brief glance before deciding something.

“Yes, it is. Now get out. I don’t need you to be all emotional while I operate on him.”

It was telling how paralised the crew was by their new discovery as most of them instantly followed Law's command. Except Zoro. Nami always thought that the man just liked to be hard to handle.

“I won’t leave my captain."

“Yes, you will. Only Chopper stays.”

The surgeon and the swordsman glared at each other for a moment, but after Chopper gave Zoro a pleading look, the man relented and followed the others out of the room. 

No one talked as they settled down on the deck of the Sunny. Nami heard Usopp cry even though the man tried to hide it.  
The weather was beautiful outside as if it tried to taunt them. As if they hadn’t just found out that the boy, who was the most important person to all of them, had been through even more than they had already thought. It should have rained.

But what was even worse then figuring out their captains past was that he didn't tell them. No, he even _activly_ tried to hide it from them. Didn't he trust them?

“Did any of you know?”, Brook asked. He seemed to be the most level-headed one of them. Maybe because he was the oldest, the navigator thought.

No one answered, only Zoro shook his head. But that was enough of an answer. If Zoro hadn’t known, no one had known.

“It doesn’t make sense”, Sanji whispered. The man was smoking his third cigarette in record speed. When Nami looked up from the floor, she realised that the cook was also crying, he was simply better at hiding it then Usopp.

“You sure it doesn’t?”, Robin asked.

“He always wanted to be the pirate king to be the freest man in the world”, Franky said. The cyborg was speaking in a more serious tone than Nami had ever heard him speak.

“The past doesn’t matter on this ship”, Robin repeated what their captain had told them frequently.

“Think about how angry he was at Arlong and Judge for stealing our freedom or how he punched that Celestial Dragon”, Nami said. The navigator realised that she had also started crying as she felt the first warm tears on her cheeks. 

“But… but I always thought that was just Luffy!”, Sanji said biting down on his cigarette. 

“Maybe it had only been for a short time or something? Maybe... it hadn't been all that bad?”, Usopp asked hopefully.

Nami shook her head: “We got to know him when he was seventeem. The... it must have taken place before. He was probably still a child and Luffy is strong but if he had still been a child… it must have been horrible."

“He’s always so carefree. If I wouldn't know any better, I would think that nothing bad has ever happened to him”, Brook said. The skeleton was looking at the sky as if he tried to make sense of it all.

“Do we have to talk to him about it?”, Usopp asked.

“Yes”, Zoro said his fist word since they went out onto the deck.

~

After the surgery they all went back to their captain. The boy was sleeping peacefully with Chopper laying on his belly and the surgeon of death sitting beside him and holding his hand. The doctors were also sleeping, the operation must have been exhausting.  
Nami gave a half smile at the cold hearted Trafalger Law holding Luffy’s hand. The boy just had a way to wrap other people around his little finger.

“How-how should we bring it up?”, Usopp asked looking at Luffy’s sleeping form.

“We just ask him”, Zoro stated, “he’s still Luffy. He won’t lie to us if we ask.”

~

None of the Straw Hats left the room until their captain woke up. Chopper and Law woke up before him. The surgeon seemed to be a little bit embarrassed about holding Luffy’s hand, but he didn’t let go.

They had waited a few more hours before the boy himself woke up.

“What? Where? Do you want more! I will fight you!”, were Luffy’s first words. He seemed to think that the fight was still in action.

“Mugiwara-ya, calm down. There aren’t any enemies around anymore to take down, we won”, Law said, softly pushing Luffy down again. 

“Oh, okay.”

After that the boy appeared to notice that his whole crew was gathered around him. First, he grinned at them but then he started frowning.

“Oi, guys why do you all look so down if we won? Is everybody all right?”

“Yes, no one beside you was hurt, Mugiwara-ya.”

“Then what –“, at that Luffy looked down at his bandages and immediately seemed to realise what was going on, “– oh… so you saw…”

And then Nami saw a side of his captain she had never thought she would see. She hadn’t even known it existed. The boy freed his hand from Law’s grip and seemingly tried to completely withdraw from the situation. He curled up and looked down at his hands.  
The navigator felt her heart ache for her captain.

“Luffy…”, Nami said and got a little closer to comfort the boy. But before she could even touch him, he recoiled looking at her almost scared. Instantly the woman withdrew her hand as if she got burned.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”, Zoro asked in a soft tone that Nami knew he only used on Luffy, “we’ve been through so much together. You know that we would have never judged you.”

“I know… I just – just didn’t want you to think that I am weak.”

“We would never think that!”, Usopp said. Chopper nodded vehemently at the sharpshooter’s words.

“If anything, this makes you stronger, captain”, Robin said.

Nami realised she had started crying again. She hated seeing Luffy like this.

“Your crew is right. There is nothing to be ashamed of, Mugiwara-ya. Especially as this must have happened when you were really young, right?”

Law reached out to the other captain again and this time the boy didn’t flinch. But he still didn’t look up. Instead he started talking again.

“It was shortly after Ace left. I was thirteen and some slave traders found me in the woods where I grew up. I still don’t know what they wanted there, but they –“

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to, captain”, Sanji said.

“No… I guess you deserve to know. I should have told you earlier… “

The boy breathed in and out once as if to prepare for what he would tell them now.

“Those guys took me and I – I couldn’t fight back. I wasn’t really good at that when I was thirteen”, Luffy chuckled, “or not good enough, I guess. If I had been stronger, I…”, Luffy breathed in and out once more, “they took me to some kind of auction like the one we saw at Sabaody Archipelago.”

The boy swallowed before he started talking again.

“A lot of people wanted to buy me, because of my devil fruit”, Luffy chuckle again as if there were anything funny about this story, “the first man wasn’t too bad. He only made me fight against other slaves in a betting game. There is a stadium in Mary Joa just for those fights. But he didn’t make me kill anyone like some of the other Celestial Dragons did, so… I guess it wasn’t that bad.”

That explained why Luffy had already been such a good fighter when they had met, Nami thought. She just wished that the explanation were anything else.  
Even though the navigator could feel the others vibrating beside her in desperation to comfort their captain, nobody said a word.  
Nami wished the boy would stop talking now, if that was the part that hadn’t been ‘that bad’, she didn’t want to hear the rest. 

Luffy was the personification of sunshine to her. Even though he was a pirate she had never seen him do anything bad. He didn’t steal, didn’t kill and wasn’t even aggressive – or at least not if no one hurt his friends. He saved people. So many people. Why had no one saved him?  
Suddenly the navigator felt bad for not being there to save Luffy. He had saved her from Arlong. He had freed her. And after that he had saved her again and again and again,  
When she looked up, she could see the same guilt in all the faces surrounding her. It was ridiculous. None of them had even known Luffy existed at that point, but still…

“After some time that guy got bored of me and sold me off to someone else. The new guy was –”, Luffy faltered, “he was worse. He didn’t want me to fight.”

The boy paused again as if to decide if he should elaborate or not but then decided against it.  
Nami could only imagine what that second bastard had done to Luffy. Everything she could think of made her want to puke. 

“When I was sixteen, I was saved by the revolutionary army.It was a wednesday in november. They saved a lot of slaves that day. Dragon was there too. I didn’t knew that he was my father than. Since I found out I always wondered, why – why he didn’t take me with him. Especially after I got to know that he took Sabo with him…”

The Straw Hats captain’s voice trembled and Nami felt righteous anger grow inside of her. Luffy was right. Why didn’t a father take his abused son in but some random child he found somewhere?  
Not that it was Sabo’s fault, not at all, but why hadn’t Dragon taken both boys with him?

“Dragon took me back to the mountain bandits and then after some time I went away... and I found all of you guys!”

Nami could only wonder how the rest of Luffy’s childhood had been when he talked about living in the woods and mountain bandits.  
But before she could ponder on that thought too much, Luffy finally looked up and smiled at them. But this was the first fake smile Nami had ever seen on her captain’s face. Luffy _didn’t do_ faking or lying. She knew he only did it for their comfort and that made it even worse. They should be the ones comforting him now.

“Oh, Luffy…”, the woman whisperd. She couldn’t hold back from hugging him anymore.  
The other Straw Hats immediately followed her example while Law was still holding their captain’s hand.

There was no talking only silence as no one knew what to say. Nami was sure she would bruise from the crushing hugs of her crew mates but it was all worth it as her captain’s smile became less fake and more real again.

“It’s all good now guys! It had been a really long time ago! And now I need meat! Sanji!”

~

As they got together again to eat, Nami knew that it wasn’t ‘all good’. Luffy still seemed shaken by the talk but he didn’t mention it again.  
The navigator has always thought that her captain was the most open person she knew, but now that she thought about it, he never really talked about his problems, so they always thought he didn’t have any. But that was obviously ridiculous.  
Has he ever even really talked about what went down at Marineford? About Ace’s death? With anyone?  
They would have to look after there captain more. He might be the strongest person she knew and sometimes seemed like an unbreakable force, but he should still talk to them if something was wrong. 

Albeit it wasn’t ‘all good’ now, it could be in some time. Of that Nami was sure as she looked around. All her crew mates were around her laughing and talking and there seemed to have been a silent decision made between them, that from now on they would try to protect their captain more. Like he always protected them.

Nami saw it in Zoro’s protective glare that seemed to be stuck on their captain, in Sanji not-arguing with Luffy as he stole his food, in Usopp’s constant jokes and stories that this time seemed to be about Luffy as a hero and not himself, in Brook playing only Luffy’s favourite songs, in Robin who had called Sabo to tell him to come around sometime soon because it would make Luffy happy (and also because they had to talk about something), in Chopper’s constant looking after Luffy’s bandages (even more than normally) and Franky’s promise that he would build Luffy some cool robot thingy just for himself.

Even Law was still on the Sunny to look after Luffy. Though Nami wondered if he didn’t had to go back to his submarine and his own crew or something? He must be crushing pretty hard on the boy to let everything else slide for the other captain. Or at least that was the only reason with which Nami could come up for the surgeon of death’s actions.

So no, it wasn’t ‘all good’ but it could be again at some point.

**Author's Note:**

> I really like slave Luffy and I thought about writing a few more one shots about this headcanon. So let me know if you liked it ne maybe even leave a comment, then I might be more motivated to write more :D  
> & thanks for reading
> 
> Also: I don't know why I have now written two one piece fanfictions from Nami's perspective. She's not really one of my favourite characters but whatever :)


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